Saint Andrews to honor quintet's 7 decades of service
Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church, 201 E. Jefferson St., Sunday will honor five of its members who each have more than 70 years of membership in the church.
They will be recognized at the 10:30 a.m. Sunday worship service.
The public, as well as the family and friends of Marian Cunningham, Bill Douthett, Caroline Mahood, Mary Turk and Bud Weckerly, are invited to help honor the faithful members at the worship service and at the light celebration luncheon in the Memorial Room of the church following the service.
Douthett, 88, of Butler, said, “A week ago, I didn't know about this. The nurture team are sponsoring the celebration.”
Douthett said he joined the church in 1941, although it really wasn't a question seeing as how his parents and grandparents were members of Saint Andrews.
That's the same reason Marian Cunningham of Butler gave.
“I was three when we moved to Butler. I was born in 1929 and I'm 88 now,” said Cunningham.
She said her family moved during the depths of the Great Depression because her father's relative had a place Cunningham's family could rent and Charles Offutt, the owner of Offutt's Department Store on Butler's Main Street, offered her father a job.
Douthett's family is keeping up the Presbyterian tradition. He said his youngest son is a Presbyterian minister in Virginia.
Cunningham had two girls and a boy. The girls stayed with Saint Andrews, she said, although her son turned Lutheran.
Asked why he's stayed with the church for seven decades, Douthett said, “My answer is there are two reasons: Presbyterianism and that a lot of wonderful people have gone through there in a lot of years.”
Caroline Mahood, 89, said she was a Lutheran until she married Saint Andrews member James “Rex” Mahood 70 years ago.
Mahood said, “I was a deacon for a couple of sessions.”
Asked what kept her in the congregation, Mahood said, “It's friendly. It's just like a church family.”
Bud Weckerly, 84, had a more concrete reason for being a member since he was 12.
“Our architecture makes our church one of the prettiest in Butler,” said Weckerly.
“Richard Patterson, who owned Patterson Auto Parts said he watched his grandfather and uncle build the beautiful arches of Saint Andrews. They had to work off scaffolds to build those beautiful, beautiful arches,” he said.
Weckerly has been a member of the church choir for almost his whole life except for a long hiatus caused by his job.
“I still sing in the choir. I've done it all my life except for the 30 years I worked at Armco,” he said.
“There, Sunday was the first day of the week and all the young guys had to work and all the old guys had the day off,” he said.
When Weckerly retired from Armco in 1995 he went back to the choir and never left. He plans on singing Sunday.
Unfortunately, Cunningham won't be in church Sunday to enjoy either Weckerly's singing or the recognition.
“I'm getting over a broken hip. I could make the ramp in a walker, but I don't have my balance,” she said.
“I feel really bad that I can't go because I've been a deacon and held every office in the building,” said Cunningham.
But, she added, “They said they would tape the ceremony for me.”
